


Smoke (Pt. 1)

by Serai



Series: High Contrast [11]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Anticipation, Cigarette smoke, Fear, M/M, Photography, Pre-Slash, Scents & Smells, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:19:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4552149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serai/pseuds/Serai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkroom has always been Casey's sanctuary...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke (Pt. 1)

.  
The darkroom has always been Casey’s sanctuary. 

Ever since junior high, when he got his first camera, he’s been captivated by the careful ritual steps required to create the finished product. All the little secret tricks and techniques used to transform something as mundane as a football flying through the air into art, a moment of profundity, an echo of the sky above it. Casey’s never made art, but he thinks maybe someday he might get there, given the right subject. 

Right now, he’s working on a group of abstract images, smoke rising through the air against a background of dark brick, that he discovered as details in some candids he printed earlier. The shapes intrigued him enough to expand the possibilities of the image set, and he’s been using some of his precious photo paper, bought with money he’s been saving, to try and create something meaningful, some kind of visual statement about the hidden nature of…hell, he’s not sure. He just knows he’ll see it when it’s there. He thinks he has something, though, hanging on lines in the front room, starting large and zooming in, from the human to the ephemeral. The red light of the darkroom makes the pictures even more sensuous, more lyrically enigmatic. Are we all wisps of smoke? Dust in the wind? Or is it just an excuse to look at something beautiful, record it in its dark, mysterious fluidity?

As he moves the last of the series from the developer tray to the fixative, he hears the faint sound of the front room door opening again. Probably Mr. Martinez. Casey thinks no more about it as he works over the tray, moving the paper back and forth to make sure it saturates. He likes this one, the forms are just right, suggestive of something untranslatable. Jackpot. He loves creating things only certain people might get. His own language, in shadows and textures. He looks more closely, and decides to cut a matte for that upper section and reprint it. He doesn’t hear the little sandpaper sound of a striking match at all.

It takes a couple of minutes for the acrid wisp of burning tobacco to reach him through the air vents. When it does, Casey's heart nearly stops. His nerves instantly strung tight, he grips the table’s edge under the chemical trays, the last picture forgotten. Suddenly he’s faced with a wall of formless panic, his breath stuttering, not knowing who or what he’s on guard against. _Yes, you do_ , he thinks. _You know. Mr. Martinez doesn’t smoke, and who else would be down here now?_

Casey feels a flush of heat through his chest that’s almost painful. Why is Zeke here? What does he want? Then he hears footsteps slowly making a circuit of the front room, and realizes Zeke is looking at the finished photos. Jesus, why didn’t he turn them around on the lines, so they wouldn’t attract attention? All he can do now is stay silent, and hope that Zeke hasn’t noticed the red light that warns the darkroom is in use. The steps continue, slow. He’s _thinking_ about the pictures, and that makes Casey feel even shakier. God, any second now… The sound stops.

There’s a word Casey’s come across that he’s never quite been able to pinpoint the meaning of: _erotic_. It seems to mean different things depending on who’s talking, but he thinks what’s happening now fits that word. Right at this moment, Zeke is looking at himself _through Casey’s eyes._ Casey tries to imagine his posture, his expression, but finds he can’t. He genuinely doesn’t know how Zeke would react to the pictures. 

That’s not true, though. He does know. A lifetime of being prey has made him alert to the feel of a predator, and he knows those pictures have sealed his doom, whatever it might turn out to be. _There’s nothing incriminating in them, just chill the fuck out already,_ he thinks. Sure, to anybody else, but Casey knows no one else is thinking about him the way Zeke is. He doesn’t think anyone ever has. 

Besides, the guy’s not stupid. He knows those are the pictures Casey _chose_ to print. The idea that Zeke is inside his mind right now, looking at himself being looked at, makes him dizzy. Makes him feel as if he isn’t alone in the darkroom, as if Zeke is standing right there behind him…looking at _him_. The longer the silence, the longer the photos - _fascinate? intrigue? amuse?_ – him, the more Casey feels that presence leaning over him, hovering like a bird of prey, not quite touching him, his long arms planted just outside of Casey’s against the table, his long legs keeping him trapped, shaking. Casey sweats and pants, feeling the heat rushing up and down his spine, spiraling down to collect like a fireball in his groin. He doesn't think he's ever been this hard. Any second now, he’ll feel the slightest caress of heat along the side of his face, and warm breath against his neck, in his ear. 

Sure enough, just at that moment, the faint sound of a long exhale comes through the vent, and Casey bites back a moan, engulfed in a sudden burst of sensation – arms tightening around him, a hot mouth, teeth and tongue and being pushed up against a wall, a hand that won’t be stopped unzipping his jeans and yanking them down. Oh, _God_... 

Then abruptly it's over – the sound of footsteps, one, two, and the pump of the door being opened, and just like that, Zeke is gone again, only the acrid scent of that last, sated puff on his cigarette drifting through the blood-colored air, leaving Casey to clean up the ashes.

.


End file.
